MORE DOWNBEAT COMMENTS ON TV AD MARKET: If there were any doubts that the TV ad market was soft, June quarter earnings results for major media companies will have dispelled them. On Wednesday, both Time Warner and Viacom reported anemic growth in advertising for the period, The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today reports, and Time Warner even forecast advertising to be flat to down low single digits in the third quarter. Its report followed Walt Disney Co’s conference call on Tuesday night where Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger confirmed what many ad executives suspected, that some TV ad dollars being held back from the upfront were going to digital outlets.

He went further and said that Disney sees “a much more competitive environment out there for advertising,” which is why Disney has decided to reduce its reliance on advertising. If anyone can cast some positive light on all this, though, its CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves. CBS reports Thursday. Its conference call should be worth catching.

FOX OUT OF THIS HENHOUSE: 21st Century Fox’s pursuit of Time Warner sparked speculation that a new round of consolidation in entertainment was beginning, after a decade or so of relative quiet in what was once a deal-driven industry. The message from earnings calls of both companies Wednesday was: not so fast. Time Warner Chairman Jeff Bewkes, not surprisingly given his company’s rejection of Fox’s bid, laid out his reasoning why big deals can be risky. Moreover, he said Time Warner had scale and wasn’t lacking anything, WSJ reports.

Fox, despite having pursued Time Warner, said a few similar things, emphasizing it has no backup acquisition plans and was happy with its company as it is. The issue now, then, is whether Time Warner can deliver on its promise to create more value for shareholders through its own growth plan than by selling. The answer to that won’t be known for a year or two at least.

AOL’S PROGRAMMATIC PARTY: AOL has spent a lot of cash building out what it calls a “programmatic ad stack,” a suite of software and tools aimed at making a company still known by some as Grandma’s email company a serious player in the highly automated advertising business. That’s territory technology giants like Google and Facebook are expected to rule, and many still have doubts that AOL will ever attract the engineering talent to bring this vision to fruition. But AOL’s second quarter earnings reported Wednesday suggested that its programmatic investment, while a drag on profits, is helping boost revenue.

E-TUBE: If you’ve been following the rise of a huge crop of YouTube stars–with their massive fan followings now beginning to draw advertiser interest–you may have been wondering why the big TV networks haven’t looked to exploit this phenomenon? This year’s TV upfront presentations, which included lots of traditional sitcoms, dramas and reality shows, for instance, didn’t reflect this YouTube talent pool at all. Do the TV networks want to court tweens and teens ? Well, apparently the E network does. They’ve hired Grace Helbig, she of the video blog Daily Grace, that boasts of having delivered 240 million views to date, to host a new comedy talk show, Deadline.com reports. To be fair, Ms. Helbig has appeared on TV before, serving as a host on the G4 network at one point–so she’s not exactly a YouTube native. But still, it’s smart of E to tap into this seemingly fertile ground in hopes of getting this generation to watch TV.

About CMO Today

CMO Today is an offering from The Wall Street Journal, helping marketing executives discern who and what matters in marketing today. Contact our editors with news items, comments and questions at CMOToday@WSJ.com.